“That’s a really good question.” Dona took the cup of stimchai away from Jess and dropped it into one of the bedside recyclers. “Why don’t we go”—she peeled her lips back from her teeth—“ask the only guy who knows? I don’t know about you, but I’m thoroughly sick of watching these men suffer.”
Jess looked startled for a moment before an answering grin lit her face that was every bit as carnivorous as Dona’s. “Yeah, I have a couple of questions for Alex Corydon myself.”
Though after they finished with the traitor, he might be in no shape to talk to anybody else for a good long time.
“If the Victor’s not a living thing, what the hell is He?” Nick demanded over Riane’s low moans of distress. Stroking her hair, he tried to soothe her restless twisting. He felt sick, helpless. It was not a sensation he was used to—or liked one bit.
Charlotte spread her hands. “That’s a difficult question. He . . .”
“Chief!” Riane suddenly rolled off the couch and sprinted for the door.
“Shit! Riane!” Nick bolted off the couch after her, but she was already through the door. He hit it right after her, leaping into the RV clearing.
The Sela glanced around at them in confusion, having evidently returned to their human guises. “Dammit,” he roared, “somebody grab her!” They only blinked at him, standing frozen over their various artistic projects.
Actually, he supposed he couldn’t blame them. Riane bounded along like a deer, and he suspected if any of the Sela had tried to stop her, she’d have plowed right over them.
Nick put his head down and lengthened his stride, desperate to get to her before she disappeared into the woods.
Which was when two men stepped out of empty air and caught her, arresting her frantic flight. She yowled in fear and swung a wild fist, but one of them grabbed it.
Nick’s instant relief turned to horror when he realized the men wore the black and red armor of the Xer. She screamed again, struggling against their armored hands, but she was too disoriented to fight with any effectiveness.
“Let her go!” Nick bellowed. The Stone flared hot green against his upper arm, spilling sparks around his feet.
“I think not.” Another figure winked into view—naked, nine feet tall, and glowing golden, His bald head crowned with a set of horns that would have done a longhorn bull proud, a third spiral horn jutting between them. He snatched Riane from her captors as easily as if she were a toddler.
She howled and struggled, but His massive arms crushed tight around her, subduing her helpless writhing.
“Now,” the Victor said over Riane’s gleaming copper hair, “it seems each of us has something the other wants. Hand over the T’Lir . . . now. Otherwise . . .”
More Xerans popped into view, moving rapidly in among the Sela, quantum swords chiming. The Sela cowered away from them, fear and bewilderment plain on their illusionary human faces.
The so-called god grinned. “. . . Well, let’s say things are apt to become quite bloody.”
Dona and Jess strode toward the brig at a pace barely short of a run. “I hope that bastard knows something useful,” Jess growled.
“Would the bastard in question be Corydon? Because if so, I want to help.”
The two women looked around to see Frieka trotting after them. His vocalizer indicator lights flashed blue amid the thick black fur around his neck. Alerio had managed to debug the wolf’s computer system before starting the disastrous work on his own.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Fuzzy,” Jess told him cautiously. “His guards—”
“Aren’t any more crazy about this situation than we are,” Dona interrupted. “Besides, having been on the receiving end of Frieka’s teeth, I’ll bet Corydon would find them a very effective threat.”
“Good point.”
“I’ve always thought so.” Frieka bared the fangs in question. “Just tell me what part of him you want me to bite first. Speaking of which, what is the plan?”
Dona veered down the corridor that led to the brig. “We’re going to make the fucker talk.”
“Simple, ruthless, and effective, considering how gutless the little weasel is. I like it.”
“I do try.”
“Which is one of the things I like about you. How are the Chief and Galar?”
“Still raving.”
“Galar keeps remembering having to shoot that bitch ex-lover of his, the one who tried to kill him years ago.” A fine muscle worked in Jess’s delicate jaw as she stared down the corridor with bitter eyes. “But when she falls dead, her face turns into mine. He keeps seeing that over and over in an endless nightmare loop.”
“How do you know that?” The wolf cocked his dark head up at her as he trotted along by her side.
“I see the dream in his mind. He’s a really strong broadcaster. The grief and guilt are driving him crazy. And I can’t seem to punch through all that crap and convince him it’s not real.” Jess curled her lip in a snarl of rage. “We’ve got to make Corydon tell us what he did—and how to fix it.”
• 31 •
“You’re right there,” Frieka told Jess as the three of them strode toward the brig. “But fixing whatever Corydon’s done is not going to be easy. I’ve encountered all kinds of viruses, Trojans, and assorted other ugly cyber attacks. This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Which brings up a really good point.” Jess dropped her hand to his head to give him an absent ear scratch. “If Corydon is the computer illiterate you all say, how did he manage to infect Galar and Chief Dyami? Neither of them would be easy targets.”
“Obviously, he got it from the Xerans,” Frieka said. “They’ve always been light-years ahead of everybody else when it comes to crafting that kind of crap. As to the vector he used—well, we’re just going to have to ask him.”
They rounded the corner to see Wulf and Tonn Eso standing guard in front of one of the cells. The two Enforcers looked around at their approach, brows lifting.
“Any change?” Wulf asked, concern in his striking turquoise eyes.
“No,” Dona said shortly. “Why don’t you two take a break? Frieka and I will keep an eye on the prisoner.”
Tonn and Wulf exchanged an uneasy glance. “I don’t think that’s such a good—”
“Don’t you dare leave me with those two lunatics!” Corydon called through the repeller field. “And where’s my lawyer? I have rights!”
Wulf turned to glare at him through the doorway. “Nobody is Jumping in or out of the Outpost until we’re absolutely sure the cyber attacks you planted have been contained.”
“You have no proof I planted a damn thing!”
“Except for your confession,” Tonn rumbled. He was a big, jovial blond, broad and handsome, well known for his wicked sense of humor. He didn’t look at all amused now.
“A false confession, coerced by your commanding officer. Who will be drummed out of the service by the time I’m through with him!”
All five of them glowered at the traitor. “You know, I feel the need for a big, steaming cup of stimchai that will take a long, long time to drink,” Wulf told his partner. “How about you?”
“Just what I was thinking.” Tonn looked down at Dona, Frieka, and Jess from his towering height. “You’ll keep an eye on the prisoner while we’re gone, right?”
Frieka bared his teeth. “Oh, we’d be delighted.”
The Victor held Riane dangling three feet off the ground, one massive hand wrapped around her vulnerable throat. Her eyes rolled, staring around wildly at some vision only she could see. She didn’t appear conscious of her real situation at all.
“Since when do gods hide behind a woman?” Nick growled, hoping his utter fear for her didn’t show.
“Hide?” The Victor laughed, a thoroughly chilling sound. It had a metallic undertone, like a machine trying to imitate a human emotion it didn’t feel. “I merely make your position clear to you, Demon. I hold all the advantages. You can either surr
ender—or watch us kill everyone here.”
Nick threw a quick look around. The Xerans had methodically surrounded the Sela, quantum swords chiming a chilling note. He spotted Ivar among them—the cocky bastard had his visor up. Yet the big redhead’s face was oddly expressionless, his eyes a little blank, as if nobody was home.
The Sela shrank away from the invaders, huddling together, fear and misery plain on their illusionary human faces.
How the fuck was Nick going to get out of this one without getting all those poor aliens slaughtered? Not to mention Riane and himself. Charlotte was the only one likely to make it out of this mess alive, and that only because she was fated to give birth to him. He figured she’d end up Jumping back to 1979 one bounce ahead of a Xeran hit squad.
“I think your lover’s attention is slipping,” the Victor purred in Riane’s ear. She just hung there, obviously so far out of it she had no idea what was going on. “Perhaps we need to remedy that.” His gaze locked on Nick’s, He ran his tongue along her cheek in one long, slow, repulsive swipe.
“Very brave.” Dammit, Nick, think of something! “Grabbing a disoriented woman and threatening a bunch of pacifists you know can’t even fight back.”
The Victor only grinned. “It’s not my fault you let yourself be outflanked.”
That lick had done something to Riane, and it wasn’t good. She’d looked worried before, obsessed with whatever she saw in her visions. Now all the blood slowly drained from her face, leaving her dead white, her dark eyes pools of horror. She began to struggle in the Victor’s hold, but without her usual fighter’s skill. Her voice spiraled into a scream. “Nick! Frieka!”
“That’s the thing about cyborgs.” The Victor slanted her a clinical look even as He controlled her frantic struggles with no effort whatsoever. “They have such exquisite control over their own bodies. But that wonderful neuronet is also the perfect means to control them. Someone like me can just slip down those pathways into their vulnerable brains and do all kinds of entertaining things.” He turned that chilling black gaze on Nick. “I can kill her just as easily as I can torture her. Now, unless you enjoy listening to her howl, I suggest you stop stalling and turn over the T’Lir.”
“You wouldn’t dare let that creature attack me!” Corydon sidled away from Frieka as the wolf stalked him stiff-legged across his cell.
“I wouldn’t bet my ass on that if I were you,” Dona drawled. Crossing her arms, she leaned against the wall next to Jess, who watched with silent intensity.
“If you touch me,” he spat at the wolf, “I’ll see you drummed out of the service! I am innocent of these charges, and I’m going to prove it!”
“That would be quite a trick,” Frieka said, his lips rippling in a vicious snarl, “considering that once I cleaned your doctored recording, it plainly shows you using a code breaker to enter Riane’s locker. Then you removed her T-suit and Jumped away with it. The next day, that same suit malfunctioned, stranding her in time. Even the stupidest jury will be able to connect the dots.”
“Where’d you send her, Alex?” Dona asked in a deceptively conversational tone.
“Did you kill her, Corydon?” Frieka lunged forward with a savage snap of gleaming white fangs.
Corydon jumped back, his shoulders slapping against the bulkhead behind him, his eyes widening in panic. “No!”
“Then what did you do with her?” the wolf demanded, his ruff rising, his eyes icy blue slits.
“I did nothing!”
“He’s lying,” Jess said, her voice calm and deadly. “I can sense it.”
Frieka snorted. “Hell, I can smell it. He reeks of lies.” He took another step forward, until his nose almost touched Corydon’s belly. The man shrank away, sidling backward along the wall. Frieka followed, his head low, his ears flat.
“She’s safe!” Corydon gasped. “She’s in the past and safe.”
“Where in the past?” Dona fired back.
“Twenty-first century. There’s a man there the Victor is obsessed with, in some little town in South Carolina. Mill-house or Mill Village or something. There was this police report. He’d saved some woman from being raped on . . .” He trailed off, as if it had belatedly occurred to him he was saying too much.
“When?” Frieka snarled.
“May 23, 2009!”
“What was his name?” Dona demanded, moving closer until she loomed over the shorter man.
“I don’t rem—”
“What was his name?” Frieka’s snarling muzzle was now barely a centimeter from Corydon’s crotch. The wolf opened his jaws . . .
“Nick Wyatt!”
“What did you do to Galar and the others?” Jess asked in a low, deadly voice.
Corydon looked up, about to make a denial. He paled as he saw the unearthly green glow in the depths of her eyes. “Nothing!”
“You’re lying again, Alex.” Jess advanced on him, the glow brightening. “Don’t bother. The Sela gave me psychic abilities, and I can sense every lie you think.”
He curled a scornful lip, but fear gleamed in his eyes. “That’s kakshit. Humans don’t have psychic abilities.”
“We used to think that,” Frieka said. “But then, we also used to think you could change history. We were wrong, weren’t we, Alex?”
Jess peeled her lips off her teeth. The green glow brightened to the intensity of a laser torch. “What did you do to my husband?”
Corydon’s eyes widened until the whites showed all around them. “I had no choice! The Victor told me He’d kill me if I didn’t follow instructions!”
Dona leaned a fist against the wall beside his head. “And what were those instructions, Alex?”
“Nanobot infections. He gave me patches with nanobots and a list of targets.” Corydon licked his lips, sweat beading on his dark blue skin as he eyed Frieka, who rumbled in menace. “I just put the patch on my hand and then touched each target. The nanobots would invade whoever or whatever it was. First the mainframe, then senior officers. Didn’t take much. A handshake was enough.”
“Why did you choose Riane to strand in the past?” the wolf growled. “Was she on that Xeran list?”
“They weren’t that specific. It just had to be someone who had met Charlotte and the Sela so she could point Nick in the right direction. I suggested . . .”
“You suggested Riane?” Frieka roared.
“Yes!” Corydon exploded, as if finally goaded into defiance. “You and that father of hers ruined my career! I shouldn’t be toiling in some minor office after thirty years as an Enforcer! I should—”
“Be serving time in a penal colony on treason charges,” Dona said coldly. “And I intend to make sure you end up precisely where you belong.”
Riane struggled in the Victor’s hold, her face twisted in grief, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her suffering seemed to tear bloody chunks from Nick’s heart.
His first instinct was to use the Stone to drag her out of the illusion, but it was coldly obvious the Victor would start killing everyone if Nick turned his attention away long enough.
Handing the T’Lir over was no option at all. Nick was damned if he was going to give that kind of power to some Xeran lunatic who already thought He was a god.
Too, Charlotte’s spirit was held within the Stone, along with those of all the dead Sela waiting to be reborn. He damn well wasn’t going to leave them trapped at the Victor’s mercy. The false “god” would destroy them all if He could figure out a way to do it.
Nick flicked his gaze around the clearing. Charlotte stared back at him across the huddling Sela, her expression cool, watchful. Obviously waiting for his signal to fight. Unfortunately, he counted a hundred Xeran priests in the clearing, plus the Victor. Those odds were ridiculous, even with the T’Lir.
Their only chance was to take all these bastards off-balance.
His claws! Hope rose as Nick remembered the energy weapons he’d created for his battle against the primitive Sela.
No. His h
eart sank again. Even that kind of weaponry wouldn’t be enough. He needed something more.
Too bad that primitive Sela was an illusion created by the Stone. They could have used him . . .
He wasn’t an illusion, Nick. Charlotte’s voice rang in his mind. Startled, his gaze met hers across the crowd of Xeran warriors. I told you before. You’re the heir to the Guardian’s spirit. He’s you.
• 32 •
Nick sprawled in a twisted, bloody heap, his green eyes wide and glassy in death, his waxy face twisted in an expression of horror. Frieka lay next to him, his black fur matted with gore, pink ribbons of intestines spilling onto the deck.
The wolf’s blue eyes rolled to look up at Riane as she crashed to her knees beside them. “Nick! Frieka!”
“We depended on you,” the wolf said, the blue lights of his vocalizer flashing dimly, giving his computer-generated voice a deceptive steadiness. “You failed us. You left us to die. Not fast enough. Not strong enough. They were right—you’re not the warrior your father was.”
“I’m sorry, Frieka! I shouldn’t have brought you with me.” Tears stung her eyes as she touched the wolf’s matted fur. Her gaze slipped to Nick’s face, and pain shot through her. She wanted to howl.
Hand trembling, Riane reached toward Nick’s bloody face. Dead. He was dead. And she was responsible . . .
He’d always believed in her. And she’d failed him.
“I always knew it would end like this.” Frieka moaned. “You were a failure in the military, and you’re a failure as an Enforcer. Now you’ve killed us both.” The wolf’s head dropped, his eyes going glassy. “Failure . . .” His computerized voice trailed away into a dying buzz.
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